


standing in the sunlight in the middle of the street

by apothefarley



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A melancholy soft sort of angst, David processes some stuff he thought he was done with, Emotional Baggage, Emotions, Happy Ending, Husbands, Joni Mitchell - Freeform, M/M, Married Life, New York City, Patrick is the best husband ever, Post-Canon, References to Sex, Sometimes stuff is hard, The timeline is unclear but that's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apothefarley/pseuds/apothefarley
Summary: "But what is he supposed to do when the life that is made for him, made to measure, the life he’s spent weeks and months and years building with Patrick, what is he supposed to do when that life intersects with a place that’s not meant for him?That’s the problem, David thinks, reflecting back on this now, staring out of the window of a faceless New York hotel room, waiting for Patrick to come back to him, watching life go on, uninterrupted, below his feet, while he sits, stagnant and unmoving, his life as he knows it on pause, not knowing when he’s going to get it back.It had all been so perfect, and David had been so comfortable in the rhythm of it, the predictable, steady cadence of Patrick’s love, that he’d forgotten to be scared.He thought he was invincible, under the shelter of the life he’d built. Under the promise ofI will make you so happy here. Now, here is thousands of miles away from them, an almost invisible speck in the distance, and David is back in a city he left behind years ago, a place that represents another lifetime, another understanding of truth, another David Rose."or; David is done with New York, until he isn't, has dealt with it, until he hasn't.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 100
Kudos: 224





	standing in the sunlight in the middle of the street

There comes a point, weeks, months, years, into the start of this new life he inhabits, when the dust settles on a wedding and it becomes a marriage, where David realises, stark and sudden, that he lets himself get too comfortable. That the gentle constant of Patrick’s love, the security of it, having a home for the first time, it made him put his guard down, take a breath. And he realises, boarding pass crumpling in his too-tight grip, stale airport air dry and thick in his mouth, down his throat, Patrick’s hand curled around his juddering knee to ground him, that he shouldn’t’ve. That every instinct for self preservation he’s ever had he developed for a reason.

At first glance, it seems like David let New York go for good in the week before his wedding, on the lawn of an unfamiliar house, Patrick’s strong, safe, capable arms holding him together. When he thinks about it, though, really, he thinks he gave New York up a long time before that; maybe he gave it up before he even left there. New York hasn’t been David’s for a while. Never really was his. Somewhere to exist, streets to put his feet on, people to interact with. Surface level. Two dimensional. Just out of his reach.

He’s not meant to be here. He’s made peace with that, so many times over, in the sanctuary of their tiny town. In Patrick’s arms, at the altar on their wedding day, behind the counter of the store, cross legged on the empty floor of their new living room. There are some places and things and lives that just aren’t meant for you. David knows that. But what is he supposed to do when the life that is made for him, made to measure, the life he’s spent weeks and months and years building with Patrick, what is he supposed to do when that life intersects with a place that’s not meant for him?

Patrick applied and got accepted to some business development programme at NYU. He’d told David before he applied, obviously, sat him down with a spreadsheet and a bunch of printouts, and explained its utility and all of the administrative details. He’d even done a cost-benefit analysis on being away from the store, David’s diligent husband, consistently committed to bettering their life, to keeping the promise he made David years ago, on the manicured lawn of a home not yet theirs, _I will make you so happy here_. David had half listened to the whole thing, distracted by Patrick’s conviction, his arms braced against the table, the cradle of the home they’d worked so hard to make. David had been lulled into a false sense of security by the far-awayness of it all, the tentativeness in Patrick’s points, the qualifiers littering his sentences, _if_ and _but_ and _maybe_. It had all seemed so untenable, then, weeks in a sprawling city, reduced to the size of Patrick’s laptop screen. Patrick had succeeded so effortlessly with his promise that David had forgotten that life has the capacity to go wrong. It had all been so perfect, and David had been so comfortable in the rhythm of it, the predictable, steady cadence of Patrick’s love, that he’d forgotten to be scared.

That’s the problem, David thinks, reflecting back on this now, staring out of the window of a faceless New York hotel room, waiting for Patrick to come back to him, watching life go on, uninterrupted, below his feet, while he sits, stagnant and unmoving, his life as he knows it on pause, not knowing when he’s going to get it back. He hasn’t even unpacked. He should, he knows that. He’s staring at his suitcase now, at the rows of neatly folded clothes. The first thing Patrick did was hang up his shirts, squashed them in, some two to a hanger even though he knows it’s not good for them, just so he could leave David more than half of the wardrobe. Compromising, again. Putting David first. It’s still empty. He doesn’t even think Patrick has noticed. He goes in the wardrobe in the morning and grabs a shirt, jeans, shoes. He dresses in them, the same order every day, and becomes the outward version of himself. Becomes Patrick Brewer, husband and business owner and extrovert. Like it’s just that easy. Like everything is the same, like everything can be the same, like setting doesn’t matter. Life goes on, for him. It doesn’t work like that for David. He doesn’t _want_ this life to be the same, doesn’t want this city to become comfortable, broken in, for his life here to become rote. So he doesn’t unpack.

It’s like- the longer he lives out of a suitcase, the longer he can try to convince himself this is temporary, a pit-stop, an adventure. Clothes in a wardrobe are permanent. Products on the bathroom counter are even more permanent. Permanency scares David. There’s something about its rigidity that makes him uneasy. It was trusting a feeling of permanency, leaning into it, that got him here in the first place. The permanency of Patrick’s presence, of the town that saved them both, it made David complacent, unafraid. He thought he was invincible, under the shelter of the life he’d built. Under the promise of _I will make you so happy here_. Now, _here_ is thousands of miles away from them, an almost invisible speck in the distance, and David is back in a city he left behind years ago, a place that represents another lifetime, another understanding of truth, another David Rose. It hurts to be back here, to accept that he’s back here, to wrap his head around the fact it’s not just a weekend, not just three days of escape. It’s sixteen whole weeks. It’s the continuation of their life somewhere it isn’t meant to be. It’s his husband, halfway across the city, with no idea at all.

“Babe?” Patrick calls, as he slips through the door, already pulling at his coat, trying to juggle an armful of files. He sounds elated, giddy, spilling over with energy. Despite everything, he’s still David’s beautiful, endless, extrovert husband, watery city sunlight in his hair, heart on his sleeve, everything he is there just there for the taking. “David? I’m home!”

_No you’re not_ , David thinks, and then fixes his face into a smile, turns around and opens his arms.

***

It’s date night, which they’ve diligently been trying to make happen every Thursday for their entire duration of their relationship. Before they came here, they’d missed one, in the week after the barbecue. Even then, they hadn’t really _missed_ it. Patrick wouldn’t let that happen. He’d sent David’s usual cafe pick over to the motel, plus an order of mozzarella sticks, and a folded-up note taped to the lid of the takeout container. It read _you didn’t think I would miss date night, did you? I can’t tell you how much I wish I was with you. P x_. Even then, Patrick was so careful with David, so reverent with their routines, handling them like they were fragile and treasured and brand new, which, looking back, David supposes they were.

They’ve been in New York for three weeks, and this is their first one.

Patrick has been _so_ excited all day, unable to sit still, the anticipation buzzing under his skin so insistently David swears he can see it. He keeps saying things like _I can’t wait to show my husband off to the whole city_ , eyes wide and earnest and full of wonder, like he really means it. David can’t deny that he feels a little thrill at it too, the fact he gets to retrace his steps in this place on the arm of his husband, to try and rewrite his history with it with Patrick’s help. To exist in this city safe inside a love the likes of which the David that lived here, alone, all those years ago, never thought was real, never mind made for him. Mostly, though, he feels an absent longing flourishing in his chest, for their old routines, for closing up the store together and Patrick driving them to Elmdale for date night, one hand on David’s thigh, singing along quietly to the radio. He wants to go home to their house, handsy, giggling, unable to be apart, every ridiculous newlywed cliche rolled into one. He aches with how much he wants everything to be uncomplicated, how much he wants their life back. Instead, he’s sat on the end of an unfamiliar bed, waiting on his husband to take him out on an unfamiliar date night in an uncomfortably familiar city, wondering if things will ever feel simple again.

Patrick comes out of the bathroom, distracted, fiddling with his cuffs. David is so used to the sound of his husband moving, the unique way his body disturbs the air around him when he enters a room, so he looks up without even registering he’s done it. Patrick is leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, and he takes David’s breath away. He’s dressed…not like Patrick. He’s wearing a pair of slim cut grey pants with dress shoes, a white shirt unbuttoned to expose the inviting hollow of his throat, and a beautiful checked peacoat that looks thick and good quality and expensive. His slightly shaggy curls, the ones he’s growing out just because David asked him to, are carefully styled. He smells like his wedding cologne, fresh and earthy and familiar. It strikes David all of a sudden, that the smell of him is the only familiar thing, here. He’s never seen any of these clothes on his husband before. Patrick looks good, amazing, healthy and gorgeous and confident. David should want to pin him to the wall, or the bed, insist they don’t leave, bow to the temptation of his neck in that shirt. But he can’t. Patrick doesn’t look like himself. The longing from earlier is back, fully-fledged now, specifically for a navy blue dinner jacket. David can’t breathe; there’s something in his throat stopping him. He suddenly feels like if he opens his mouth to take a breath, he might cry instead.

Patrick grins crookedly, strikes a stupid pose against the doorframe of the bathroom. “Hey handsome,” he purrs, eyes shining. “Any chance you’ll let me take you out?”

“You look good,” David says, and then clears his throat, swallows around the feeling rising up in it, trying desperately to choke him. He steps closer into Patrick’s space, runs a hand around the cuff of his coat, slides their fingers together. Tries to make it look normal, affectionate, to not give himself away. “Patrick. You look really good. Do you feel good?”

“I do,” Patrick tells him, earnest eyes never moving from his face. “David, I always feel good when I’m with you. You make me feel good, David. All the time. You have to know that.”

_You make me feel good_. It sounds achingly similar to a moment from years ago, now, _you make me feel right, David_ , Patrick cracking the damaged, painful core of himself open and letting his heart fall to the dusty, stained motel room carpet at David’s feet. It’s not the same. It’s not; David knows this. The Patrick in front of him all that time ago, aching, so terrified David could feel it rolling off him in waves, is not the man he married, and not the man who stands in front of him today. The last four years and a marriage have been kind to Patrick; his hair is longer and he stands with his shoulders back, and he dresses like this, apparently, and he hasn’t taken his wedding ring off once since David put it on him. He’s different, now, and David is different, too, in more ways than he cares to consider, and because of that, the shape of this moment is different. There’s no comparison to be made, really. Except there is. It’s the last time David can remember feeling exactly like this, the sheer force of his emotions reaching like a hand up his throat, stopping him from speaking, making it hard to breathe. It feels like grief, the strange, indescribable kind where you’re trying to grieve something that isn’t gone yet.

“Okay,” David breathes, instead of saying any of this. Patrick slides his palms up David’s chest, soothing, and David takes his first real breath in an hour, feeling Patrick’s hands rise and fall with it. “We should probably go.”

Patrick grins, like the sun breaking suddenly through thick, heavy fog, and David remembers that this is what he’s doing all of this for. To see Patrick look like that. Something settles inside his chest momentarily with the knowledge he’s able to make Patrick look like this, make him light up like this.

“Let’s go,” Patrick says, backing David out of the room with the hands he has firmly placed on his chest. “I can’t wait to take you out. It’s been forever.”

David goes pliant, lets himself be pushed, does, like he always does, what he can to keep Patrick’s joy incandescent and vivid.

***

They’re walking home, and it’s raining, and David’s not drunk, but the sharp, nameless feeling alive and screaming behind the wall of his chest, and the rain-slick pavements under their feet, they make a hell of a partnership, and David feels unsteady and about to fall, like he’s half a dozen drinks in, hazy with it.

Patrick _is_ drunk, a little, loose and open and affectionate with it. They’d been meandering the streets after dinner, aimless, holding hands, bumping shoulders, having saccharine, unimportant conversations, laughing, being married. David had almost let himself lean into it, take a breath, just be David for a second. He’d been settling into it, the gentleness, the normality, of being hand in hand with Patrick on the sidewalk. The rest of it had melted away for a few minutes; they could’ve been anywhere. It’s easy to be anywhere with Patrick. Then, it had started raining, out of nowhere, and the road had filled up with cabs, and the stolen moment had vanished from David’s grasp like he’d never even had it to begin with. Patrick had laughed, throaty and shocked and so pleased, and ducked into the doorway of the nearest place he could find, tugging David insistently behind him.

It had turned out to be a piano bar, low-lit, intimate, the exact perfect place for Patrick. David doesn’t think he could have designed somewhere his husband would be more comfortable than he looks here. In here, Patrick looks effortless and relaxed and gorgeous, in a way that makes a lump rise in David’s throat that he can’t explain. They’d stayed for an hour, Patrick leaning heavily into him the entire time, smelling of his familiar cologne and rain and the whiskey he’d been ordering from himself. He’d kept one hand on David’s thigh, the other resting on the dark wood tabletop, fingers absentmindedly tapping along to songs he’d recognised.

And David is angry. He’s _pissed_ with himself. How, _how_ could he hate somewhere that looks this good on Patrick? That makes him light up like this. That makes his face change, his posture. All David has ever wanted, since the very first time he met Patrick, sweet, standoffish Patrick, in Ray’s garish living room, is to please him. To impress him. He’s never seen Patrick pleased like he is in New York, even with the simplest of things. How could David ever hate that? How could he want to be anywhere but the place that gave him his husband, exactly as he is, just in blaring, magnificent technicolour?

He’s a vision. New York in the rain suits Patrick, which is just unfair. 

He’s got his head tilted back, face towards the sky, and the lithe line of his neck is exposed, pale and strong and pretty. A droplet of rainwater is tracking its way over the ridge of his Adam’s apple, towards the collar of his white button down, which is rain-damp and translucent, clinging to his skin. David loves him, in this all-consuming, breathless way that used to terrify him, back when they were brand new and trembling, but now, in this restless city David’s become so estranged from, loving Patrick feels like the only thing he knows for certain, like the only thing in this godforsaken place he can hold onto.

If they were at home, David would already be in Patrick’s space, face to his throat, chasing that droplet, feeling rather than hearing the pleased hitch of his breath, the low, satisfied rumble of his voice, _c’mon, David, let me get you home at least_. God, if they were at home, so much would be different. But they’re not at home, they’re miles and miles away, and David is watching his husband grow into the cracks of the uneven city sidewalks without him. David aches for home, wants to go there so badly, but the way Patrick has settled into a rhythm, easy and worn and comfortable, with New York, like falling back into step with an old friend, makes David wonder if he’ll ever go home again. If Patrick already feels like these expansive, crawling, faceless streets are more of a home than he ever managed to find in the kitchen at Ray’s, or the exposed bricks of the apartment, or the flagstone floor, the bay window, the tiny but flourishing veggie patch that David stayed for. #

“What are you doing?” David’s voice, raised to compete with the din of Manhattan, doesn’t sound like his own. He clears his throat, but he doesn’t think it’ll make a lot of difference.

“Come here,” Patrick says, grabby, already reaching for him. He winds his hands around the inside of David’s wrists, and pulls. His fingertips are freezing from the rainwater, pressed against the delicate veins here. Patrick’s wedding ring, a thick, tarnished gold band, reflects the low halogen orange of the streetlight they’re under, a shock of burnished orange stark against his cool, pale skin. The sight of it makes an absent little ache come to life under David’s sternum, the way even this, the most simple, constant marker of Patrick’s steadiness, is different in this godforsaken city.

“No, closer, baby, come on,” Patrick says, a little wine drunk, giddy, and tugs at David’s wrists again. He stumbles a little against the slick, wet paving slabs and Patrick catches him. At least Patrick is still catching him, here in this city that he loves and David hates. It makes David hate it a little bit less, just for a second. Patrick unhooks his cold fingers from around David’s wrists and slides his hands into their place on David’s waist, under his coat, intimate and second-nature.

“Now you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?” David asks, trying to keep his tone light. Patrick grins, loose and affectionate. His bared teeth are stained with the cab sav he’d been drinking earlier. His lower lip, too, and David knows so well how it’ll taste if he leans in right now to kiss it.

“Well,” Patrick says, and then pauses, taking his lip in his teeth. Under the streetlight, doused in its synthetic richness, he looks improbable. His eyes are bright, teasing. His hair is dark from the rain, slicked back in a way that makes him look dangerous, a little bit, one tendril falling onto his forehead. He looks like he could eat the world whole. David will never tire of being the focus of that single-minded attention from his husband, even here, on a street in a city he’d wanted so badly to have seen the last of. “I’ve always wanted to kiss a beautiful guy in the rain, on the sidewalk.”

“Mm,” David hums. Patrick’s drawing light circles on his sides with the pads of his fingers. Like all of his touches, it’s gentle, distracted, but deliberate. “But what will your husband think?”

“Oh, I think he’ll be okay with it,” Patrick riffs, with the kind of confidence he gets with a couple of glasses of good wine, the kind that makes David’s heart hammer unevenly. “He’s the one that brought me here, after all.”

Patrick leans in, then, for a lingering, slow kiss, full of feeling, honey sweet but a little bit heated, too. The skin of his face is damp, water running down from his hair, and the tip of his nose, where it nudges against David’s cheek, is freezing cold. David can tell Patrick is drunk because he’s crowding into his space, messy, out of control of his limbs, and he’s stood on the toe of David’s shoe; this is something his fastidious, considerate husband would never normally do. Patrick is scratching at David’s sides, lightly, through his shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, even when it’s closed, he can see the faint flicker of the streetlight they’re under. The rain has picked up and it’s starting to get down the collar of his coat. Held in the onslaught of sensation and his husband’s sure, strong arms, David can lose himself in this kiss, and let himself have a soft, forgiving moment, and almost forget the way his heart kicked against the walls of his chest, insistent, when it heard _he’s the one that brought me here_.

***

Opposite the bed in their hotel room is a mirror, square, gilded gold frame, the wall behind it painted an inoffensive, placid off-white, the kind of colour that is incapable of clashing with anything. At home, when David looks at the wall facing the bed, he gets to look at one of their wedding photos, a candid, a still of one of David’s most treasured moments, smiling at eachother, Patrick’s gentle, careful fingers at the line of David’s jaw, tilting their faces together. David loves to look at it, to see himself caught in a fragment of joy, unabashed and unmitigated and safe in it, and then look to the left and see Patrick sound asleep, hand stretched out to reach for David, and be suddenly, exhilaratingly reminded that joy is no longer fragmentary for him. That he gets to live inside it, have it be a constant, feel it swell in his throat every time he looks at his husband.

On instinct, he casts his eyes left. His stomach drops. On his left is a bedside table, and a lamp, and further in the distance, the door to the bathroom. That’s right, he reminds himself, shaking out his head, sharp. Here, in this place where nothing is the same, where everything is bent out of shape and where he doesn’t fit anymore, his husband sleeps on the wrong side of the bed. At home, Patrick sleeps on the left. He’s always slept on the left, since the first time they shared a bed, exhilarated and relieved and enamoured, at Stevie’s. It’s become a fact in David’s life, an inevitability, a simplicity, something he can rely on. The sky is blue, the sun rises and sets every day. Patrick sleeps on the left. It’s jarring to exist someplace where that’s not true. To have to accept that it’s not true. To not know why it’s not true, anymore. To have a truth ripped away from you without warning or reason or knowledge. Maybe that’s why David lives every day feeling like he’s grieving. Maybe, without realising, he has lost something, put it down and forgotten where, not even realising he’d lost it until it’s far too late to go back and look for it.

Patrick’s broad back fills out the shoulders of his white sleep shirt. David wants so badly, so desperately, to reach out, to trace a finger down the graceful swoop of his spine over the thin cotton. To be reminded that there are some routes he still knows, some roads he will never forget how to navigate, some places he will never feel lost. But Patrick didn’t fall asleep that long ago, and if he wakes at David’s touch and rolls over and drinks him in, fond, tired eyes and careful hands, and asks _why aren’t you asleep, sweetheart?_ then David will open his mouth to answer, and he’s not sure he can trust what will come out.

“Babe,” Patrick whispers, sudden, into the dark, making David start. It turns out Patrick wasn’t asleep after all.

It’s nearly midnight, and David had thought, _hoped_ , that his husband’s silence had meant he was asleep. Patrick can sleep anywhere, easily, comfortably, and New York seems no exception. He turns his back to the wide windows, the blare of the traffic lights, the muffled cacophony of the city that never sleeps, presses a cheek to David’s arm, and sleeps, like it’s that simple, the way he makes everything he does look so simple and effortless. He moves like he’s in tune with his body all the time, moves David with him like an extension of his limbs, like he’s aware of him all the time. David lets it happen, lets himself be moved, led, the surety of his husband’s body the only thing that tethers him to the all-consuming constancy of the city below them and above them and around them.

It’s become a routine, Patrick rolling, limbs loose with fatigue, against David in the bed, and falling asleep, and David staying awake to watch him, to settle in the nearness of him, the softness, the way he’s bathed in the sliver of artificial orange light that always leaks through the gap in the curtains. He hates that they’re starting to develop routines in this place; routines make it so that you’re living in a place, instead of just staying there. But still, this change in their reluctant routine catches him off guard. He starts, and Patrick runs a soothing, gentle hand down his spine and settles it at his hip.

“Babe,” he says again, softer this time, the way you’d speak to a spooked animal. David would object, but he feels like that so often these days, wild and jumpy and fragile.

“Yeah,” he breathes, not turning around. “Sorry, I thought you were sleeping.”

Patrick presses himself up closer against David’s back. The warmth and solidity and freshly showered smell of him is everywhere, surrounding, keeping David safe. David is thankful, in this quiet, sleepy, barely lit moment, that this is the man he married, the man that loves him in a way he didn’t know he could be loved. It makes the ever-present knot behind his ribcage untwist for a second, to be here, in a bed, held by Patrick. For a second, David can make himself believe that the location of the bed doesn’t matter, that he could be anywhere in the world and being loved by this man, held in the safety of his solid, unwavering affection, would make everything else fall away. Then a siren blares outside the window, slices the moment right open, and David stiffens in Patrick’s arms. The reminder of where they are is harsh, unforgiving, and David hates it, hates this place, hates the way he feels here. He doesn’t feel like the David Rose that Patrick married, here, and that’s who he wants to be more than he ever wanted to be any of the David Roses he tried so desperately hard to be the last time he was here.

“I was thinking about your birthday,” Patrick murmurs, tangling their fingers together, oblivious. “It’s only three days away. What do you want to do for it?”

To go home, David thinks. More than anything, he just wants to be at home. He wants subpar mozzarella sticks, and the slightly sticky vinyl booths of the Cafe. He wants Patrick to wear his stupid dinner jacket, the way he always does when he takes David out for his birthday. He wants to get wine drunk and walk the long way home hand in hand, past the motel parking lot where they kissed the first time, unaware how close they were to the precipice of forever, just hanging onto each other. He wants Patrick to attempt to make him a cake, to come home to him flour-dusted and frustrated and kiss it away, swaying together in their kitchen, content. He wants his husband, open and affectionate and tasting of wine, on their sofa in their home, where everything is honey sweet and slow and theirs. He wants to stop feeling this constant foreignness, this homesickness that persists around him, like he wakes up every day and puts shoes that are the wrong size on. He wants Patrick to know this without having to tell him. He wants, so much that it aches, right in his throat, sticky like grief, so he can’t swallow around it.

“I just want to spend it with you,” David says. “All I want is to be with you.” If there’s nothing else in this city that’s true, at least there’s this. Patrick is the truest thing David has ever known- the contours of his body and all of his different smiles and the way he sings in the shower, it's all just fact, at this point, indisputable. David holds it close, keeps it safe, lets it soothe him.

“I’ll think of something special,” Patrick says. He’s falling asleep, his words slurring together slightly, but he sounds determined. Even though he’s facing away from Patrick, David can picture the little crease between his eyebrows. “Your birthday should always be special. It’s always gonna be special to me.”

His breath is coming in tiny, even little puffs against the back of David’s neck, his fingers twisted into the fabric of David’s shirt. David nestles back into the grip of this man, his man, the man that loves him relentlessly and holds him up and wants his birthday to be _special_ , and lets himself cry, takes a long moment to grieve for his home, for the person he was allowed to be there, the person New York never let him know.

***

It’s been sweltering today, hot in a way that makes you ache. They’ve been together for five years, and the sun, it seems, has showed up to celebrate.

David knows Patrick wants to make it special, woke him up before eight with a line of eager kisses up his neck and deliberate, curious hands. He followed David into the shower, saying it was _expedient_ and _cut down their getting ready time_ and _it’s your birthday, David_ , then spent a luxurious, decadent fifteen minutes washing and conditioning David’s hair, massaging the tense line of his neck and the slant of his shoulders. He’d hooked a pair of sunglasses into the collar of his button down and his fingers through the gaps in David’s and dragged him out into the waiting, expectant day. David knows he had a full day planned, weaving in and out of markets and restaurants and independent booksellers he researched beforehand and knew David could while an entire day away in.

But it’s just so _hot_. And everywhere is so busy and insistent and all-consuming. It’s claustrophobic. David feels closed in on, everywhere, even more than usual. And, like Patrick is insistent on reminding him, it’s his birthday. So he begs off, convinces Patrick to pay too much for a middle of the road bottle of chardonnay from a liquor store on the corner of the street and buys a punnet of strawberries on the way home and drags them back to the hotel room as fast as he can get there. He doesn’t like the hotel room, really, but he dislikes it a little bit less than everywhere else. It’s the only place that’s just for him and Patrick, where he can shut the door on New York, draw the curtains, pause the moment and just be with Patrick, free of sound and colour and expectation. They’ve been living in it for a few weeks, now, and David can trace all the ways it’s starting to become a mimicry of a home- their shoes lined up by the door, Patrick’s hoodie draped over the back of the armchair, the stack of thumbed-through novels on the left-hand nightstand that David can’t quite bring himself to refer to as _his_. Given the choice, he wouldn’t be here, but there’s nowhere else he can be right now. Home feels further away every time he thinks about it, and not just in miles. He’s starting to forget some of the insignificant things that make living there, sharing a home with Patrick, so perfect; their old routines are pushing their way out of his head to make space for the new, reluctant ones they have here. It makes David ache, a strange, absent sort of ache, thrumming constantly under his skin, itching to get out.

They’re on the balcony, now. That was the compromise, they would come back to the hotel, but they wouldn’t _waste the day, it’s our anniversary, too, David_. So they’re outside. Patrick is basking like a lizard in the sun, content and serene and flushed from the sun and the wine and the thrill of feeling a bone-deep level of comfortable in his own skin. David adores his husband like in this pliant, happy state, sat on the floor between David’s legs, cheek resting on the inside of his knee, hand wrapped around his shin. His thumb is tracing a soothing, repetitive circle against the exposed skin of David’s calf and he’s humming aimlessly under his breath. This is where David should be in stasis, at his equilibrium, able to breathe. Yet there’s a restless thrumming inside his brain, eager to make sure he knows that even this, the most saccharine of moments, isn’t quite right.

At home, on the deck, they have a sofa. It took them hours to pick it, bickering good-naturedly in the store over which one was the right one, testing them all out, Patrick carrying a tape measure around. It’s one of David’s favourite memories of their marriage, that day, buying furniture with the love of his life, kissing in the queue for the checkout, driving home with all the windows down, sunglasses on, holding hands over the centre console of the car, sofa jammed in the back, singing at the top of their lungs. Being visibly, comfortably married, out in the open, for everyone to see, knowing that anyone could look at them and see plain on their faces evidence of their love, of their commitment to this life. The permanency of building the sofa, of passing the flat-pack test, it had made one last thing click into place in David’s soul. The house had felt like it was theirs. Their life had felt like theirs. There’d been a subtle shift, in that moment, in the wake of it, from a wedding to a marriage, a house to a home. Just from a sofa on a patio. And that sofa has become a focal point of their marriage, a place to meet in the middle, an oasis in wicker and cushions. A place they fight and then reconcile, a place to sit in companionable silence and let the stress of a bad day bleed into nothing. They fit so perfectly on it, side by side, limbs arranged just so, practiced at it by now, the way they fit perfectly into their life, arrange themselves around each other just so. David misses that sofa, in a way that aches deep in the well of his chest, an ache of what should be, what could have been. He misses what the sofa represents. He’s grieving, in an odd, warped imitation of grief, for what this time could have been on that sofa, in that house, in their usual, comfortable, broken-in life, rather than this strange imitation of it, half vacation, half routine.

“Five years,” Patrick sighs, drawing David out of his head, back into the moment. “I can’t believe I’ve loved you for five whole years.”

“Well, that hasn’t been five years,” David points out, bringing two fingers down to rub the spot between Patrick’s ear and jaw that makes him nestle in, catlike. It still sends a lightning hot thrill through David, even after half a decade, even as a husband, to watch how this man’s body reacts to him, to see clear evidence of how well he knows him, how easily Patrick lets David in, how much he wants to be known, wants _David_ to know him. “That part came a little later.”

“David,” Patrick says, looking back over his shoulder so their eyes can meet. “If you don’t think I was embarrassingly, irrevocably in love with you from the second you leaned in to kiss me in my car at the motel, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Oh,” David says, trying to ignore the way it sounds hesitant to his own ears. Realistically, he should have known that, probably. Patrick loves hard and fast and open, heart on his rolled-up, starched cotton sleeves, without hesitation.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that,” Patrick says, teasing, voice soft. Instead of replying, David brings his anxious fingers to a stop and rests the flat of his palm to Patrick’s neck. Patrick nestles into the touch, resting his temple against the lip of the chair, tilting up to try and meet David’s gaze. At the lengthening silence, he scoffs softly, and tightens his grip on David’s calf. “Babe. Come on. I was completely transparent.”

“Well, I didn’t want to assume,” David replies, indignant. “You were very snippy with me. How was I to know?”

Patrick laughs at that, sudden and bright and a little bit too loud, like a sunbeam spilling out of his mouth. It’s a balm on David’s sore, oversensitive soul, that laugh, the mouth it comes out of. All of a sudden, David can’t not be kissing Patrick, doesn’t want to go another second without that laughing mouth against his, so he leans down and kisses him, lips parted on a laugh. He tastes like chardonnay and strawberries and the sun; it’s a familiar taste, but different, too. Sweeter, maybe. An undertone of wrongness. Patrick sighs into it, and David can feel the moment he yields under David’s hands, completely gives himself over. At least that hasn’t changed from one place to the next. At least that’s still a place David has to go to, the place where their bodies settle into one another. At night, in a strange bed, insomniac heart kicking, incessant, demanding, against the cradle of his ribcage, he can close his eyes and return to that place, that moment.

Eventually, his back starts to complain at the strain and he has to pull back, but he still keeps a hand on Patrick’s neck, grounding. Patrick, like he always seems to, even after years of kisses like this, and of every other kind, looks dazed and pleased and a little shocked, a look David has had mapped out since that very first time in the car. Patrick sighs contentedly and takes another sip of wine before he speaks again, in a voice soft and levelled and wondrous.

“Can you imagine? What it’d be like to tell us from five years ago that this is what we get to have?”

David looks down at his hand, resting on the side of Patrick’s neck. At the burnished gold of his wedding ring. He thinks about all the things these hands have done, in the last five years, all the things they’ve helped to build. All the ways they’ve touched Patrick, tender and heated and cautious and teasing, but never, ever without love, reverence, always like something precious, that David was never meant to have. He can’t imagine that the David stood in Rose Apothecary that day, missing all of the glaringly obvious signs from his business partner, sweater sleeves pulled over his hands, nervous and new, would believe him. He’s not entirely sure the David of right now believes this is happening. Touching Patrick is grounding him, though, feeling his husband, warm and steady and constant, life thrumming under his hand.

“I don’t think that David would have believed you,” he admits. Then, because it’s Patrick, and Patrick is safe, and will let David say anything he needs, and always seems to know what he really means and what to say, even when David himself doesn’t, he carries on. “I don’t think he thought he deserved anything remotely like this, to be fair.”

Patrick huffs a self deprecating little laugh in the back of his throat. “Yeah, I think this would have caught five years ago Patrick off guard, that’s for sure. I think, even though he would never have wanted to admit it, he was probably scared of marriage, y’know, as a hangover from spending years preparing himself to be in one that he secretly really didn’t want to be?”

“What about the Patrick from five years before that? What would you want to tell him?” David asks. They don’t touch on their pasts too often anymore; only when they’re pensive or drunk or have a specific reason. There’s no need. They’re too focused on forward, now, on the sprawling expanse of forever stretched in front of them, on living each day inside of that alongside each other, savouring it, remembering as much as possible. But David has to ask. Suddenly, he needs to know what of this life Patrick would want his old self to have, whether it would be a comfort to know it was waiting for him. Whether it would have made it worth it for him to know this.

“To be patient,” Patrick says, instantly. Like he’s thought about it before. “I would tell him to hang in there and be patient, because even though it kind of feels like the world is caving in right now, there’s more ahead than he could ever even fathom. That his future is so much wider and brighter and fuller than he ever knew it could be. He just has to wait a little while longer for it. But that wait will be so worth it, because there’ll be someone there that’s waited for him, too. He’ll know him when he meets him.”

Maybe that’s it. Maybe David just has to be patient. Just hang in there, wait New York out, be patient a little while longer. Perhaps that’s all this is. Growing pains. A bump in the road. A lack of patience. Yeah, that’s it, for sure. That has to be why he feels so wrong here, a place where he should feel so right. He just hasn’t waited long enough, that’s all.

****

Time passes, as it tends to, slower than David would like it to, the days blurring around the edges so they look the same shape unless you squint. But it passes all the same.

Everything is different here. Sex is different here. Another thing David was so sure of, took for granted, got too comfortable in. Their intimacy, something they’ve never had to work for in their entire relationship, it’s different here. Not bad, it could never be bad, with the way they know each other, the way David trusts Patrick’s hands and mouth and body to keep him safe, to look after him, to know what he needs, where he needs to be touched, what he needs to hear. But something unidentifiable has changed, there’s been a tiny seismic shift in their world, and David seems to be the only one who’s noticed the ground under his feet has moved. Everything feels deliberate, here, like a process, thought out, step by step. At home, it’s not like that. It feels like one long moment, time indeterminate and tacked together and syrupy, a single exhale. It’s easy to be on their bed, in the house they’ve made their own, and mark off a moment in their existence together; shared breath, the inevitability of their bodies, easy, endless. 

It’s been kind of a while since the last time; Patrick is tired from school most nights, and the nights when he’s not, he wants to go out. There’s so much city to see, he says, so many streets to pace and nights to get lost in and moments they haven’t had yet, suspended, waiting for them, in time they haven’t gotten to. So they do that, instead, and Patrick takes pictures, and David chews on his cheeks and aches on the inside, and desperately, longingly, to reach for new memories of an old place, to hang onto for safekeeping, for a day in the future he might need them. And then they come back to the hotel and they peel off their clothes and they get in the bed, with the mattress that’s too soft, and the pillows that are too flat, and David feels like a stranger to the body next to him, on the wrong side of him, and he can’t make himself reach out and try to reacquaint them. There’s something burning through his veins, something searing, akin to fear, a distant cousin of it, that stops him from putting his hands all over Patrick, making something tangible of the desire and the desperation that light him up in equal parts. It’s scary, to want something this much aloud, to expose the softest, rawest, most vulnerable parts of himself, to give into want. To make the first move.

So he lets Patrick come to him. To put himself in David’s space. To make himself known, to wear this heady, thrumming want as plainly as he wears his adoration, his exasperation, his fatigue, his forgiveness. He lets Patrick come to him because it’s easier, surer, safer. The want is undeniable, if he waits for Patrick to voice it; under his sure gaze and surer hands, the truth of his desire is impossible to ignore. Because Patrick always knows what to say, what to do, where to take them.

And come to him Patrick does. In the dark, hovering over David, sweating and stunning and sure, Patrick twines his fingers with David’s on the pillow and breathes, “Take me somewhere you used to go.”

He’s so close to David’s mouth that he feels the heat of the words on his cheek. The question pulls him up short, drags him out of this heady, breathless moment. He immediately wants to be back in it, misses the press of Patrick up against him, familiar but still so, so thrilling.

“You don’t want to see anywhere I used to go,” David says, curving his hand around the back of Patrick’s head, trying to pull him back down, to force them back into the moment. He wants to go back in time a few minutes, back to being the focus of Patrick’s single-minded attention, pliant under his clever, wandering hands, able to forget for a few minutes. Able to be present. Able to be touched without having it feel like his whole body is a fresh bruise, aching and tender and hot.

Patrick drops down to his forearms, brushes his open mouth against the nearest part of David he can reach, without being able to tell what it is. It’s David’s chin, but Patrick kisses it, slow and thorough and reverent, like it doesn’t matter to him where, only that he’s touching David.

“David,” he says, soft, slightly rough. It’s reminiscent of his voice in the morning; that voice makes a supercut of all David’s most treasured moments flash through his head in stark colour. He settles a little, at the familiarity of it. It’s okay, it’s Patrick. He can give things over to Patrick. “Sweetheart. I want as much of you as I can possibly get. All of you. I want to see these places. I want to know where you were before I found you. I want to see where I should have been looking for you. I’ll never stop wanting to know you, David.”

“Oh,” David breathes, punched out of him, hoarse. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the way Patrick wields his love. Doesn’t know if he ever wants to.

But where is David going to take him? His time in New York before is inconsistent and inconsequential and lonely. He doesn’t want to take Patrick to any of the clubs he fell head first out of just in time to meet the sun over the city skyline. Can’t take him to any of the restaurants he wined and dined disinterested flings in. His old apartment has definitely been sold by now, not that he would want Patrick there anyway. He doesn’t think he could cope with seeing how much Patrick would stick out there amongst the abstract art and expensive furniture and the persistent air of loneliness he could never quite get rid of. There’s nowhere sacred left in this city for David. Nowhere he can point to and say I felt peace, here, I felt like myself. Except.

“The Whitney,” he decides, finally. He barely even realises it’s coming out of his mouth. “Let me take you to the Whitney.”

“Tomorrow,” Patrick decides, already lowering himself back into David’s space. “I can’t wait to go with you, David. I can’t wait for you to show me around.”

Patrick kisses him then, all of his attention directed back into David, into making him feel good and right and present. Pressed back against the pillows, comfortable in the cradle of his husband and the promise of tomorrow, just them, in the only safe place he’s ever had in New York, David feels a fleeting spark of hope, small but alive, behind his ribs. He smiles into their kiss, and lets it swell into something warm, sweet, promising.

***

Patrick’s been mentioning the piano bar from weeks ago with increasing frequency, looking wistful and fiddling with his wedding ring.

He misses music, David knows that. Patrick’s never said so, but his guitar has always been an extension of him, the way he knows how to say things he can’t quite find the words for. His parents gifted them the family baby grand piano when they moved into the cottage, the one that’d been in their house Patrick’s entire life, the one he learned how to play on, the one he always headed for first when he visited home. Having it in their home makes it feel complete; it fits like it was always meant to be there, like it’s an inevitability that David should get home to the soft, sweet tones of his husband manipulating music under deft fingers. He must miss it. It’s been so long since he got to play. It’s been so long since David got to hear him.

So David arranges for them to go back. Patrick gets in from his seminar, and David is sat on the bed, dressed but without shoes, ready to whisk his husband out into the waning Tuesday evening, to try and claw back a crumb of what he misses. Patrick smiles so big David is worried his face is going to split in two, and gets ready faster than David’s ever seen in the entire duration of their relationship.

The walk there is fun, full to bursting of light, giggly chat about their days, Patrick swinging their joined hands in between them as they go. The ease of it makes hope rise in David’s chest, shiny yet fragile, like a soap bubble. Maybe, the longer they stay, the more days will feel like this one, and existence will ache less and less, until it’s just a shadow in his mind. Maybe he can live like this. He can do it, he thinks, if that’s what Patrick wants him to do. He’ll learn to bend. It can’t be too hard.

The bar is bustling, the low hum of chatter surrounding them. There seems to be a different person on the piano every time they look, and the barman tells Patrick Tuesday is their open mic night while he’s mixing their drinks. At the mention of an open mic night, Patrick looks at David, an open, nostalgic smile on his face, and he sneaks a hand under the hem of David’s jumper to pinch at his waist, affectionate, reminiscing. The barman picks up on this and starts explaining how it works, Patrick listening eagerly. One song per person, he says, it can be anything, you don’t have to play the piano, you can just sing if the bar has the backing track. His husband’s eyes are shining. Privately, David pats himself on the back for the way everything has fallen into place.

They find a tiny table, tucked into a corner and settle there, talking every so often, listening to the rotating cast of players work through indie ballads and classic rock and acoustic arrangements of songs that shouldn’t work, but seem to come together seamlessly in this tiny bar in Manhattan. Patrick drinks it all in eagerly, tapping his fingers on the table to the tune when he knows the song. David can almost see the cogs turning in his husband’s mind, coming up with arrangements, tuning into the music in an effortless way David’s never understood but always admired.

“You should go up there,” David says, when there’s a lull between performers. “I know you miss playing.”

Patrick looks hesitant, opening his mouth to refuse, to bat it off casually, _it’s fine, David, I’m rusty anyway_ , so David adds, “I miss hearing you play. It’d be nice to hear it again.” It’s true, and, more than that, it’s likely to get Patrick to do it; his resting state seems to be acquiescing to David’s requests, to giving David what he wants. Saying it is strange, though. It’s the closest he’s ever come to letting Patrick see the hot, aching core of him, screaming to go home. He’s careful not to let things like this slip, in case one becomes two becomes three becomes the deepest, most hidden core of him out in the open. But Patrick, hesitant and beautiful and all David’s, in the low, warm lights of the bar, he makes David want to be honest, just this once, to give away a tiny part of himself, if only to make Patrick’s face light up. He looks for a second like he’s going to argue again, but then a smile breaks across his features like the sun from behind a cloud, and his whole countenance loosens, and he looks comfortable in his skin again, like he always should. Like the Patrick David knows so well. He reaches out to twine his fingers with David’s, squeezing gently, eyes shining.

“Yeah, okay, babe,” he says, smiling. “I can’t be that rusty, right? It’s like riding a bike?”

“You’ll be great,” David says, and believes it with everything in him. Patrick stands up from his seat, then excited energy driving him to his feet. He leans over David, the taller one for once, and kisses him, soft and slow and intimate, a fleeting moment just for them, even in the middle of a bar teeming with life. He tastes like the whiskey sour he’s been nursing, sweet and sharp and warm. David’s never been partial to a whiskey sour, but the bite of the liquor and lemon, softened afterwards by the sugar, tastes right in Patrick’s mouth. If David could stay inside this kiss forever, kept safe in this moment, Patrick’s sweet, insistent mouth against his, he would. Eventually, though Patrick pulls back, looking at David with soft eyes. It’s a challenge not to chase it, to try not to sink back into Patrick’s grip, his gentle mouth, the only place David has ever been safe.

“I love you,” he says softly, when he pulls back, one hand on top of David’s on the tabletop, the other curled around the back of his neck, toying with the closely shaved hairs at his nape.

David clears his throat, breathes out, focuses on the feel of Patrick’s waist beneath his hands. “Love you too.”

“What should I play?” Patrick asks, extracting himself from David’s grip. “Any requests?”

“Anything,” David says. “I’m just excited to hear you play again. It’s been a while.”

Patrick makes his way up to the front, shakes hands with the bar owner, exchanges a few words with him, then goes up and settles himself on the bench in front of the piano. It’s a full grand, shiny chestnut wood, pristine ivory keys. It’s so _Patrick_ , and for a second, David aches unbearably for all of the things he can’t give to Patrick, all the ways this city is filling in the gaps, letting Patrick have things he’d never even imagined at home in Schitt’s Creek. But then, Patrick’s hands settle, strong and sure and unfaltering on the keys, and his wedding ring catches the low light, and David is brought back into the moment.

“Hi,” Patrick says into the mic over the piano, shy but smiling. “I’m Patrick. I’m visiting from out of town with my husband, and I guess I just missed my piano at home? So I’m gonna play you guys a little something, and hope I’m not too out of practice. This one’s for you, David.”

He starts playing. It takes David a few seconds to realise what the song is, for Patrick’s hands to become sure, for them to find their place on these unfamiliar piano keys. But then it clicks, and the piano yields to his practiced touch, and Patrick sings  _ just before our love got lost you said, I am as constant as a northern star _ , and David gasps, suddenly breathless. 

He’s transported back to a moment, years ago, sitting in the passenger seat of Patrick’s car, gesticulating wildly, fiddling with the radio dials, announcing  _ there’s no one like Joni Mitchell, she’s a Canadian national treasure _ . Patrick had laughed, soft and shy, a flush creeping up his neck. It had taken a minute, but eventually he’d admitted  _ I grew up with Joni Mitchell, she’s my mom’s favourite. And I, uh, listened to A Case of You on my way back to Ray’s after our first date. My mom always put that one on when she was happy, so it just felt like the right song.  _ David had been winded, unable to speak, to breathe, like he is now. Patrick had added  _ one day, when the time is right, I’ll play it for you, okay? I promise.  _

Apparently he’s decided that the right time is now, in some tiny, anonymous piano bar, miles away from home, on a random Tuesday in September. Is this Patrick’s way of telling David he’s homesick too? Is this him begging  _ take me home, take me where I can be with you _ ? Is he using music to fill in the gaps, knowing it’ll be there for him, won’t let him down, just like he did when they were so new, before they’d taken shape, before they’d given each other everything they are?

_ You’re in my blood like holy wine _ ,  _ you taste so bitter and so sweet, oh I,  _ Patrick sings, soulful, eyes closed, lost in it, and between the bars, David thinks he hears Patrick asking for something, but when he reaches out to close his fingers around it, it’s not there. David sits back in his seat and watches his husband play, listens to the way the notes bend to his will, how his voice curls, low and comfortable, around the words. He aches for home, to be curled up in the armchair under the lamp Clint and Marcy bought them, watching Patrick at his piano, playing just for him, everything else in the world obsolete. David wishes he knew what this moment has that all of their moments at home doesn’t, wants so badly for a tangible explanation to exist, a list of what he can do to give Patrick what he needs. The ache of not having that is an ache that exists all the time, but in this moment, in an anonymous bar, with Patrick feet away from him, unable to touch him, it’s all-consuming, clawing up his throat. He just wants to give Patrick what he needs, to be enough. To give Patrick even an ounce of what he deserves, what he wants, what he’s searching for under the keys of the piano. 

Patrick brings the song to a gentle, deliberate stop, and looks up, immediately searching for David. The atmosphere in the bar is bated for a second, everyone taking in his husband's talent. From behind David, some anonymous New Yorker lets out a sharp, impressed whistle, and the bar erupts with pent-up energy, applauding and cheering. Patrick stands up, suddenly shy again, and tucks the bench under the piano, the way he always does at home, because he knows David can’t stand it being out to trip over. 

He makes his way back to David, slowly, being stopped by bar patrons, who want to shake his hand or congratulate him or request a second song. He’s sweet and polite and engaging to them all, his extrovert husband, comfortable in his skin, courting strangers. It’s entrancing to watch, the way he flits through interactions, moulding himself to fit in each of them. He makes it look so effortless, easy to move through the world. 

Eventually, he gets back to David, immediately moulding himself to his side, placing a fleeting kiss to his jaw. He reaches over to pluck the glass of pinot grigio David’s drinking out of his hand and taking a long pull of it. David watches his throat work as he swallows, distracted by the pale expanse of his strong neck as he tilts his head back. He swallows and places the glass on the table, then brings the hand that isn’t at the small of David’s back to his chin, using two fingers to gently direct his head towards Patrick, so they’re looking at each other. 

“So, how’d I do?” Patrick asks. He’s incandescent, loose and beautiful and sure, in David’s arms. He’s smiling, his eyes crinkled at the corners. When he’s like this, all of his attention focused on David, it’s consuming, distracting. David almost wants to look away from the intensity of this moment, from the glare of Patrick’s love.

Instead, he matches his gaze, makes his mouth smile, and musters up every single bit of truth inside of him, and says, “You were incredible, honey.” Means it, as much as he can mean anything in this imitation of their life, where he doesn’t know what’s true.

***

It’s a Sunday, languid and lazy and light, and they’re spending it in Soho. Patrick wants souvenirs for his parents and David wants, like he’s wanted since  _ B13 _ , since  _ I’m not here for your sister _ , since  _ I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials _ , for Patrick to be happy, to get what he wants from David. So he gets up and he dresses in his lightest shirt and pants, slides sunglasses over his eyes and he goes. 

If David thought New York looked good on Patrick, Soho specifically outshines anywhere else they’ve been. They eat brunch outside, knees knocking together under the too-small table. Patrick’s wearing sunglasses and a loose white button down and an infectious smile. He looks at David over the rims of his glasses and he’s delightful, all sun-drenched and sure of himself. He leans on his hand to look at David; the rasp of his wedding band against the stubble he’s letting grow out a little while they’re here is reassuring. If David focuses hard enough, this could be a Sunday morning on their patio, or out front of the cafe, or a spontaneous breakfast date to Elmdale. If he tries hard enough, nothing is different, nothing has changed, their life is the same as it always was, he doesn’t feel out of place and unfamiliar and unsteady. He lets Patrick feed him bites of pastries across the table, run his toe up David’s calf, just generally be his sweet, attentive self, touching just to touch, sharing just so they can have shared experiences. David lets himself trip and fall headfirst into this imitation normalcy, lets himself enjoy it, bask in it, take what feels like his first breath since they arrived here. It’s good. It’s Patrick. It’s life. 

They hold hands all around the Soho streets, even though it’s swelteringly hot. David doesn’t mind. Patrick weaves in and out of stores with an excited reverence that makes David nostalgic, in a strange sort of way, nostalgic for memories that don’t quite exist. He remembers when he first came to New York, remembers being self-satisfied and hungry for experiences, but never reverent, never the way Patrick is approaching this, like he’s remembering every step, running his fingers over every product, glancing back at David every few seconds, like he’s trying to commit all of it to memory, to overload every single one of his senses in the hopes that as much of it sticks as possible, so he can keep it forever. David reaches out to grasp memories of his own like this, but they’re not there to hold, slip through his fingers like sand. The emptiness of his hands feels foreign, so he twines his fingers again with Patrick’s, just for the relief of something familiar.

Patrick wants presents for his parents, because the Brewers attach meaning to things, and because Patrick is a good gift giver, and because things like this come easy to them, open affection, saying  _ I missed you  _ and  _ I thought about you  _ and  _ I wanted you to have this _ . His family are getting better, gentler, softer with each other, but they’ll never have the ease that the Brewers have with one another. They’ll always have to work at it, a side effect of all those years they spent not working at it. Patrick and his parents make it look easy. David wonders, absently, if he and Patrick make their love look effortless to other people. If strangers look at them in the street, hand in hand, or sat next to each other on the Subway, pressed together, both looking at one phone screen, or trading bites of meals across the table, and think  _ love is supposed to be like that, it’s supposed to be that easy _ . Thinks he probably would have thought that, a lifetime ago, before, in this city, if he’d seen a couple like him and Patrick being comfortable and content in each other’s company, in the middle of the street for everyone to see. 

So anyway, they’re present shopping for Patrick’s parents. Patrick already bought his dad some baseball merch, and they already did the kitschy magnets and postcards and snowglobe when they first got here. If David closes his eyes, he can already see them all in Marcy and Clint’s house, fitting right in with the rest of the evidence of a wealth of happy years that’s trodden into their carpet and hanging on their walls and tucked under the bed covers and couch cushions. No, the hunt today is for real, tangible, impressive presents, and Patrick is taking it seriously. He’s browsing like they have all the time in the world to get it right. Perhaps, David marvels, on this honey slow Sunday afternoon, they really do. 

“Hey, David,” Patrick calls over his shoulder from the corner of the current boutique they’re in. “Come here a sec?”

David goes over, hooks his chin over Patrick’s shoulder, crowding into his space, sliding his hands over Patrick’s stomach. The comfort of his body against David’s is second nature at this point, immediately slows David’s ratcheting heart rate and relaxes his muscles. It’s okay. It’s always okay with Patrick. “What do you have there?” 

He’s holding a frosted glass jar in both of his hands, smoothing his thumbs repetitively over the label. He smiles; David can’t see his face to confirm, but he knows it in the rise of his shoulders, the slight lilt of his head to the left.

“This candle, it’s the candle they put in our hotel room,” he says, showing David the label. “It smells amazing.” 

“Mm,” David says, burying his face in the collar of Patrick’s shirt, inhaling, agreeing. Not with the scent of the candle, with the earthy, clean scent of his husband, comforting and well-worn in the way it settles on his skin, his clothes.

“I think we should get one,” Patrick says, taking one of his hands off the jar and resting it on top of David’s on his stomach. “We can have it to remember the trip by. On the bedside table in our room, so if we miss it, we can smell it and it’ll be just like being back here.”

There’s a ringing in David’s ears. His whole body has gone stiff, no longer pliant in Patrick’s orbit. He doesn’t want that. He wants to get out of here and never think about it again, to shake off the ache in his limbs, the heaviness that New York puts on him. He wants to go home and have it be just home, to be decisively  _ not here _ . He hurts here, all the time, and he can’t hurt like that at home. Schitt’s Creek is the only place that’s ever kept him safe.

On their bedside table at home right now, they have a reed diffuser. A glass jar, dark oak reeds. The scent of it is the cologne Patrick wore on their wedding day, a one-off wedding gift from a longtime vendor, grassy and fresh and sweet. Hopeful. David smells it and no matter what’s happened in his day, it fades into the background, disintegrates into nothingness. It smells like comfort, and promise, and home. It smells like a marriage. 

“Sure,” he says. “Sounds great, honey. Hey, it’s really warm in here. I’m gonna go wait outside while you pay, okay?”

Patrick turns his face into a soft, messy kiss, lopsided, at the corner of David’s mouth, in lieu of an answer. David lets him go and backs out of the store, not letting Patrick out of his sight. Through the big glass windows, he watches Patrick pay, chat amicably while handing over his credit card. Watches the casual deftness of the sales assistant’s hands as they wrap the jar in tissue paper, bag it up, like they’ve done it a thousand times today alone. He thinks about their store, how he handles their products like that, with familiarity and fondness and care. How Patrick does. 

He wonders whether, even when they’re not here, even when they’re home, when they’ve been home for weeks or months or years, when this trip is just a slate and sky blur in their memories, whether he’ll truly be able to escape the grasp New York has on him. It follows him for the rest of the day, and the evening, and back to the hotel. It even crawls in bed with them, and it keeps David awake all night. 

***

It’s three days later, a Wednesday, and David feels like he hasn’t taken a breath since Soho, like he dropped the ability to breathe on the floor in that godforsaken store where Patrick bought that godforsaken candle and forgot to pick it up. It’s still on the dresser in their room, neatly wrapped, inconspicuous among all the other things they’ve amassed in their time here, ready to be packed and taken home. If they ever make it there. David thinks about it all the time, that candle, how something so small and pretty and neat manages to be the narrow point of all of his biggest, ugliest fears. 

New York has always made him feel hollow, like he’s turned his pockets inside out and emptied everything he has out in offering. Like it’s got him cornered in an alley, no escape, demanding to take all there is that’s left of him. That’s not new. He’s used to it, that feeling of being constantly on guard, checking around corners, seeing faces in shadows. It’s not the waiting. He’s been waiting for New York to take everything from him for years, now. It’s just that this time feels more urgent, more dangerous. Maybe it’s because this time, he has something tangible that this city can snatch from him. Maybe this time, it has more power than it’s had any of the other times it’s tried to take everything he has. Maybe before, he didn’t have anything he was scared to lose. Maybe last time, he  _ wanted  _ New York to take from him, just to have someone else to blame. Maybe it feels different because it  _ is different.  _ Maybe Patrick makes it different, just like he’s made every other second of David’s life different since the day he walked into Ray’s living room, years ago. 

Whatever it is, it’s scaring David. He feels frantic, desperate, winded. He needs to get out. They need to get out. If they’re here another second he doesn’t know what he’ll do, who he’ll become. 

He’s been in the bathroom for too long. A noticeably long time, with the door shut on Patrick, catching up on emails in the other room. That’s noticeable, too. At home, they hardly ever do that; David keeps the door to the bathroom open while he bustles around, and they continue the conversation they’ve been having all day while he does it, while Patrick folds laundry, or turns down the bedcovers, or just hovers in the doorway, watching, like he somehow hasn’t had his fill of David for the day. It’s been their routine since their earliest days, since Patrick lived in the spare room at Ray’s house. Now, David’s behind a closed door, staring blankly at his own reflection, trying to recognise the person he sees, wondering if Patrick has noticed how long he’s been gone. If Patrick has noticed how different David feels in this place. He’s always noticed everything about David, right from the start, even the things David doesn’t notice about himself. David is so used to Patrick being finely tuned into everything he is, all parts of him, all the time. It’s almost thoughtless, at this point, comes second nature to him. Or it always did when they were at home. Everything is so different here, so tangled up in itself, that David has a hard time knowing what’s true anymore.

As if on cue, Patrick knocks on the door to the bathroom, a tentative, quiet rap with the back of his knuckles. 

“Babe?” he calls. “Are you okay in there?”

“Yeah,” David replies, not taking his eyes off his own reflection. He doesn’t look like himself. His voice doesn’t sound like his own, sounds strangled coming out of his mouth. He doesn’t recognise who he is anymore. Wonders how Patrick could possibly reconcile this scrambled up, terrified man staring back at David from the mirror with his husband.

“Can I come in?” Patrick asks, a little quieter, sounding almost unsure. David hates that wavering in his husband’s voice, more than he’s hated anything else that’s ever happened to him. in New York. Instead of answering, he goes over and opens the door. Patrick stands there, not coming any closer, in his pyjamas, looking up at David. There’s only one lamp on in the hotel room, but all the lights in the bathroom, and in the dichotomy of light, Patrick looks vulnerable, soft, worried. David reaches out and takes his hand, pulls him over the threshold into the bathroom. He suddenly needs to be touching Patrick, holding onto him, like he’s never needed anything in his life.

“You haven’t done your skincare,” Patrick says, gesturing with his free hand to the bottles and jars arranged on the side. He’s keeping his voice low and quiet, like he’s making a concentrated effort to keep David calm, to avoid spooking him. David supposes that answers his question from earlier; even here, Patrick is tuned into him, knows everything he is, knows what he needs without having to be told. 

David shrugs, trying for nonchalant and probably missing by miles. “Got distracted,” he tells him. It’s not a lie. He just doesn’t need to know what by. It doesn’t matter, anyway. 

Patrick smiles indulgently and pulls his hand out of David’s grip. Before David can even comprehend it, Patrick has both hands on his hips and is backing him into the counter. “Up,” he says, lifting David’s hips until he pushes up to sit on the counter. “I’ll do it. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to.”

That’s true. It has been a while, so long that David can barely remember the last time Patrick did this for him. This routine, uncomplicated and intimate, is something they’ve been doing since their earliest days, too. It soothes David, Patrick’s hands on him, deliberate and careful and soft. Patrick likes method, and routine, and most of all, he likes caring for David. 

“Let’s hope you can still remember how,” David tries to joke. It falls flat, and Patrick doesn’t laugh at it. He didn’t realise until it was coming out of his mouth that it’s a very real fear, that their time in New York has removed them so far from their routines that they can’t even reach out and grab for them anymore. 

“I remember how, David,” Patrick promises him, earnest, honest, the way he always is, always has been. Patrick’s got him. 

At home, when they’re doing this, David talks the whole way through. He finishes telling stories, makes little commentary remarks, talks so freely that sometimes Patrick has to lean in and kiss him, or put a finger on his lips, and say  _ babe, shhhhhh, I’m trying to work.  _ In this unfamiliar hotel bathroom, the city racing along relentlessly just outside the window, David finds he doesn’t have a single thing to say. Patrick isn’t saying anything, either, just working quietly, dedicating the same intense care and gentleness he does to everything where David’s concerned. The silence doesn’t feel right. Just another thing to add to the list of things that this city has changed, taken, destroyed. 

David takes a deep breath, a real one, his first in days, and tries to focus on all the things that are the same. The pads of Patrick’s fingers against his skin. The fresh, clean smell of the skincare he uses, products from the store he and Patrick have built from the ground up, brick by brick, put everything they have into, entwined their entire lives with. The hems of Patrick’s pyjama pants, always too long for him, brushing against the tile floor, pooling around his feet. Some things are the same, no matter where you put them. Some things in David’s life are so immovable they won’t change. It’s a comfort to him. He feels his heart slow its hammering a little behind his ribs. 

Patrick finishes up, and then puts a hand on either side of David’s neck and leans in for a sweet, slow, lingering kiss. “There,” he says, smile evident in his voice. “Gorgeous.”

David closed his eyes when Patrick leaned into kiss him, and now he can’t open them again. It all suddenly feels so overwhelming. He feels like he’s on fire from the inside. He can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t hear. He squeezes his eyes even further shut and sucks in a breath that shudders into his lungs. 

“David?” Patrick sounds so far away. David can’t respond, can’t look at him, can’t hear him. It’s all too much. Distantly, he registers Patrick’s hands falling away from his neck, his body pressing closer between David’s legs. 

“David,” Patrick says again, clearer this time, tilting his face up with gentle fingers under his chin, until they’d be looking each other directly in the eye if David’s eyes were open. “Come on. Please look at me, sweetheart.”

David opens his eyes. It’s less terrifying than he’d anticipated, because Patrick is there. His eyes are wide and  _ so  _ brown, searching David’s, looking for something. David’s not sure if he wants him to find it or not. He’s tired, so exhausted his body feels heavy with it. He’s so tired of not letting Patrick see everything he is. He aches. He wants it all to stop.

“David,” Patrick says, gently, for the third time. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

David opens his mouth to speak, but instead what comes out is an ugly, twisted sob, just one, that he feels rise from the space behind his sternum, where he’s been holding it down for weeks. There’s a pause, drawn out, then a second one follows it. And then he’s crying, in earnest, in a way he’s never allowed himself to in the whole time they’ve been here. His whole body is shaking and the noise coming out of his mouth is inhuman, wounded. He didn’t know his body could make a noise like that, could ache the way it aches right now. 

Patrick is there, solid and warm and constant, arms around David. He’s holding him, moving a gentle hand across his back in sweeping motions, rocking him side to side a little, swaying him in the safety of his presence, whispering  _ shhhhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you, David, I always have you  _ into his hair, over and over, a sonnet, a mantra, a quiet prayer. And it’s true. Patrick’s got him. It’s always been true, right from the start, right from  _ take this, it’s my card, I feel like you will need it _ . It’s almost staggering how David can pinpoint the entire history of Patrick’s presence as beginning with this moment. Patrick is the truest thing David has ever known. His love is never ending, unconditional, never in doubt. David should have had more faith in him. In the face of it, now, of telling Patrick his deepest, most honest truth, it’s not scary. He can just say it. There’s nothing to be scared of; Patrick takes care of that, makes sure of it every single day. David can’t quite understand what he ever thought he had to be scared of. 

He takes a deep breath, feels it shudder down his throat and into his lungs, feels them expand under Patrick’s hands. He’s so aware of every movement of his body right now, of how it feels, of how it makes Patrick shift. How no matter what his body does, Patrick is tethered to it, touching him, moving where he moves. How he acts like David is an inevitability, an extension of himself, how he always has. David balls his hands into fists around the shoulders of Patrick’s shirt, and breathes again, and suddenly, he has to say it. He can’t bear to live another minute inside of a life where Patrick doesn’t know everything he is. 

“I want to go home,” he says, in a voice that sounds like a distant, hollow distortion of his own. He swallows and continues anyway. “I wish we weren’t here. I don’t want to be here anymore.” 

It’s out. Patrick has heard him say it, this thing that has been eating David alive for the whole summer. Nothing has stopped. The world has carried on turning. Patrick is still here, still holding him, still warm and constant under his hands. 

“David,” Patrick says, again, effortless, like it’s his favourite word, rolling it carefully around his mouth. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You’re so happy here. It suits you. I couldn’t be the person who ruined that.”

Patrick pulls back then, to put his hands on either side of David’s neck. “ _ You _ suit me,” he says insistently, looking David in the eye. “Sweetheart. This is all you. It’s not New York. It’s New York with you next to me in it. I am who I am because of you. Anywhere in the world. But especially in our home. I wish I’d known that you missed it so bad, I would have taken you back there in a heartbeat.”

David can’t deal with the intensity of Patrick’s gaze right now, the ferocity of his love, the surety of it. He has to divert his eyes to say this next part. “But it’s not just about what I want. You want to do your school thing. You want to be here.” 

Patrick has never said that he misses home the way that David does, never given any indication that his existence here hurts at all, never mind as sharply and constantly as it hurts David. He doesn’t have the history with it that David does. He isn’t waiting, breath bated, for the ground to fall out from under him. Patrick has no reason to do anything here but thrive. But all that time ago, before they were married, he didn’t want to come here at all. He was scared of it, scared of everything changing in a city he didn’t know. It’s funny, really, that David is scared of the same thing now, but because he knows the city so well, is intimately familiar with its effortless ability to change everything. Is it selfish of David to want just a little spark of that fear to still be alive inside Patrick? Just enough to send them home. 

“I don’t want to be anywhere you don’t want to be,” Patrick says, soft but sure. The ache of it settles inside David, the ache of simplicity and their old life and of being sure of himself. Instead of painful, though, it’s sweet and hopeful and nostalgic. For the first time in a while, David believes that he might actually get to live inside that feeling again. Might get to go home. “A guy I was engaged to told me that once. I’ve never forgotten it.”

“You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?” David thinks he’s always known that, has never needed Patrick to prove it. But the stark reality of how far that will go when David needs it to is something he rarely gets to see. David starts crying again, at that thought. At the way Patrick knows him, loves him, keeps him safe. David is the central point of Patrick’s world. He knew it, in theory, but in practice, seeing what that looks like, in this hotel bathroom, plain on Patrick’s handsome face, is so powerful David can barely stand it. That’s the one thing that makes this so different from every other encounter David has ever had with New York- he’s not doing it alone. 

“Anything,” Patrick says, wiping gently, carefully under David’s eyes. It’s such a simple motion, so familiar. David’s ratcheting heart calms instantly at it. The space he’s carved out under Patrick’s palms is the safest place he’s ever been. For a second, the rest of it falls away. “Anytime. It’s all for you, David. It’s as simple as that.”

David exhales at that, long and slow. Somehow, that’s exactly what he needs to hear. That it can be him and Patrick, nothing else. That there doesn’t have to be anything more; that neither of them need that. That it can be as simple as that. That he can let it be as simple as that. 

From there, it’s easy to let Patrick lead him to bed. It’s easy to sink into the sheets. It’s easy to open his mouth and let his messiest, most disorganised fears fall out. It’s easy to let Patrick catch them, hold them, let them disintegrate between his palms. It’s easy to say the things he thought he would never get to. It’s easy to smile when Patrick says  _ I miss home, too, I miss you in our bed.  _ It’s a relief for everything to be so easy again. It’s a relief to miss home in a way that feels sweet rather than desperate, to lie in bed and reminisce with Patrick, to picture them there again, existing alongside each other slowly, for the rest of forever. The urgency has drained out of David, now, and this moment is slow and quiet and light, and living inside it calms him. 

Sleep comes easy, too. Patrick takes care of that, like he does everything else. 

***

In the early morning, David wakes up slowly, well rested, into the sticky New York morning. Patrick is already awake, propped up on one elbow, staring at David. He’s bathed in a pale swath of light leaking through a crack in the curtains. In this light, at this time, he looks improbable, insurmountable. Like something David was never supposed to have. He went to sleep without a shirt on, and the light makes his skin look smooth and warm. David wants to reach out and touch him, and he can, so he makes his sleep-lethargic limbs work and does. Patrick comes to him instantly, smiling softly. They lose drawn-out, indulgent minutes kissing and touching and laughing, twisted together in this bed, as the city pulls itself awake around them while they’re too distracted to notice. 

Eventually, David pulls away. Patrick is rumpled and warm and content, and David feels a rush of gratitude fill him, to be married to this man. To get to see him like this. To love him and be loved in return. He smiles and Patrick smiles back, bringing his hand up to brush against David’s cheek, feather light but deliberate. David feels the warm metal of Patrick’s wedding ring against his face. It’s a good day, the first in a while. 

“What’s the plan for today?” David asks through a yawn. It’s a Thursday morning; they’ve nothing to do all day. The thought doesn’t scare David like it might’ve last night. 

“Well,” Patrick says, calm, like he always is, an anchor in a storm. “I thought we might go home?”

The feeling expanding in David’s heart is swelling so big it’s threatening to break out of his chest. Nothing in his life could ever have predicted this man, sleep rumpled and pliant and committed to making him happy. David’s in love with him, wakes up every morning more in love with him than the last. “I think I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Patrick smiles, then, bright and effortless, like the sun. His eyes are glittering. He’s so beautiful, looks exactly the same as he did the day David met him, but looser, happier, almost like he’s glowing. “We should get up and start packing then. We bought a lot of new stuff, I’m not sure how we’re going to fit it all in.”

He starts to roll onto his back away from David, making like he’s going to get out of bed, but David reaches out and puts a hand on his chest, fingers splayed, to stop him. Patrick turns his head to look at him, and the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains hits him just right, lifts his hair and makes his eyes go amber, sticky like honey, boring into David’s. David takes a second to drink him in, the way he looks in this bed, in this light. He’s probably never going to see Patrick here like this again. He takes a breath. “Just one more minute.” 

**Author's Note:**

> whew. so. i can’t believe i’m writing this. this fic has been a consistent labour of love since october. i’ve worked on it in bed at 2am and on trains home from uni and in any spare moment i could get my hands on. these boys are a dream to bring to life, and i kind of wish it never had to end. i had to have a break from working on it due to personal circumstances and coming back to it was genuinely the joy of my whole entire life. and now i get to share the finished product with you. i feel such a mix of pride and fear and excitement about that. i hope you love it as much as i have loved (almost) every second of the process of bringing it to life. it’s fifteen thousand words of my heart and soul, and i hope that comes across.
> 
> (title is from i am easy to find by the national, and the mix i made for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3zeARynXCbLSlpeXzmQZZ6?si=qNanamdwSeWh62PpxDiyvw)) 
> 
> i would be remiss not to give an extra special thank you to my meats, who have hyped up every extract they’ve received beyond belief, have waited patiently for me to come back to myself, and by extension this fic, and are just generally the best wolf pack a girl could ever wish for. meatsicles, you have my whole heart. <3
> 
> and one last thank you. betsy; every single one of these 15,000 words is for you. this fic would not exist without you, plain and simple. i love you so much and cannot express how grateful i feel to have had you as my biggest cheerleader since day zero, when this was nothing, when i dropped some random combinations of words in a document and hoped for the best. thank you for putting up with me ranting about random scenes at 2am and changing my mind a thousand times. for playing and replaying the playlist i made. for patiently answering my weird, misguided questions about new york. for making every single second of this insane process exciting and fun. for keeping me level and calm, even on my worst days. for telling me when to stop and breathe and come back to it tomorrow. for reminding me of the end goal. for making standing in the sunlight the very definition of “labour of love”. without you, this would have ended up being little more than one of a thousand insignificant ideas that swirl around this non-stop head of mine. i owe you far, far more than a little fic about a city you used to know. but i think i used up all my words on this, and i can’t quite find the ones i need. so i hope this will do, for now, until i manage to find them again. 
> 
> you told me once that there’s so much of me in my writing. well, in this one, there’s some of you, too.


End file.
